The Western Canadian Trucking Industry has been undergoing much acquisition activity since 1950. Because of the growing importance of this, it is essential that the effects on the performance of trucking firms be fully understood. This study is meant to be an initial inquiry to document, and to identify the factors that have been conducive to this activity in the Western Canadian Trucking Industry principally for the time period 1950-1968. This investigation was principally conducted through the interview technique. The sample of firms used in this study, although not all inclusive, was generally agreed among those interviewed to consist of all the major trucking firms active in acquisition activity in the Western Canadian Trucking Industry. Many factors are isolated as being conducive to this activity. These factors were identified principally from current literature on the merger field generally. The relative importance of these factors is discussed. This study found that many of the acquisitions that have taken place since 1950 were principally to extend the route authority and commodity base of operations. These are of a market-oriented type generally typified by end-to-end acquisitions designed to offer better services. Most consist of larger firms acquiring smaller trucking firms, usually ones in financial difficulty. In almost all cases, the most valuable asset of the acquired firm has been the route authority. In practical terms, it was found that the only expedient way for a trucking firm to expand was to purchase additional existing route authorities, since an applicant for a new route authority must prove public convenience and necessity to the regulators. The environmental factors isolated in this study have been conducive to acquisition activity. This activity occurred during periods of economic expansion when business expectations were generally high and many firms were available for sale after incurring operating difficulty during the preceeding recession. The legal factor was also found to be strongly conducive to this activity. This was attributed to the regulatory practices of restricting entry and relatively easy approval of route authority transfers. Much of the acquisition activity was attributed to the exploitable situations that prevailed after World War II, the fortuitous railway strike of 1950 and completion of the Trans-Canada Highway. It was also found that many industry factors were conducive to the acquisition activity. The technological factor suggests that larger firms have been desirable to provide the managerial and capital base necessary to keep a firm competitive. The diversification factor suggests that many trucking firms diversified their geographic and commodity base to stabilize earnings, balance head and back hauls, and offer better service in hopes of gaining more traffic. The industry is still in the early stage of the industry life cycle with a few larger, financially more stable firms surviving the forces of competition. This factor suggests that acquisition activity should tend to slow down as the opportunities for expansion and acquisition become less. Many small trucking firms, with limited management ability, either went bankrupt or recognized the need for the many specialized abilities necessary for survival and have tended to be acquired as a result. The financial factor tended to be conducive to the acquisition activity as well. Many small trucking firms have run into a squeeze where they have not been able to properly finance equipment and expansion and have tended to be acquired or go bankrupt. The sympathetic factor, where one carrier sees another expand services through route authority acquisition and hastens to do likewise, can also be viewed as being conducive to this activity. Economies of scale were found to have little effect on the acquisition activity. Although evidence shows that there are no economies of scale of firm size, it was suggested in the discussion that there may be economies of density, management, accounting, advertising and finance that tend to be conducive to acquisition activity. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Revenue Canada, Customs and Excise is given the responsibility for controlling the importation of foreign goods into Canada by provisions of federal legislation. The control is effected by regulations requiring that most imported goods pass through a sufferance warehouse to be presented to Customs, along with approved documentation, for appraisal and assessment of applicable duty and taxes. Sufferance warehouses have been approved for all modes carrying foreign goods into Canada with the manifest mode of transport dictating the sufferance mode. The sufferance warehouse concept originated on the docks where goods arriving by sea were discharged for entry into Canadian markets. This was the natural clearance location , being the first breakbulk point on Canadian soil the clearance function could be-undertaken with minimum disruption to the efficient flow of goods. Rail sufferance warehouses were authorized soon after rail, lines crossed the Canada-United States border. Rather that requiring appraisal and assessment of import charges at frontier border crossings Revenue Canada authorized creation of rail sufferance warehouses, at inland ports where the normal breakbulk function takes place. Similar facilities have been authorized for the air mode at airports across Canada. Until 1952, the transborder motor carrier industry was required to present shipments to Customs at frontier border points. In that year, a national rail strike put pressure on the trucking industry and on Customs, to improve the delivery system for transborder goods. Revenue Canada's response was extension of the inland sufferance warehouse concept to the highway mode.. A series of privately-owned warehouses were authorized on a monopoly basis within each Customs port area, through which all transborder motor carriers were required to clear goods for Customs purposes. The highway sufferance warehouse system has accommodated the needs of Customs, those of the motor carriers and those of consignor/consignees of transborder goods by providing breakbulk facilities for carriers, adherence to the clear ance process which Revenue Canada demands and a minimum of delay time and cost for the consignee and the Canadian taxpayer within a centralized facility. In spite of the success complaints have been heard from motor carrier firms forced to use the facilities operated by the monopoly warehouse-keeper who is often a carrier firm competing for transborder freight traffic. These complaints are of inequities in the treatment of carriers using the warehouse facilities which the unregulated monopoly power of the operator permits. Specifically, carriers complain of unequal provision of services at the warehouses, about excessive rates and charges for space and services and about the effects of these factors on intra and inter modal competition. The thesis examines the transborder motor carrier industry share of the freight market and the clearance process for imported goods. It was found that the trucking industry holds a significant and increasing share of the market-— increasing at the expense of the rail carriers. The clearance procedures were found to be complicated by excessive and confusing documentation requirements and, although some simplification has occurred, changes which would simplify this major cause of clearance delays are advisable. The available information about the highway sufferance warehouse system is presented and is supplemented by the results of the 1976 Highway Sufferance Warehouse Survey undertaken as a part of this study. The thesis examines the specific complaints about the sufferance warehouse system and suggests that they result from a lack of enforcement of the existing regulations governing warehouse operations by Revenue Canada. Both public and private interests are served when competition in the transborder freight market is encouraged and in those instances when public sector inaction discourages competition changes are necessary. The thesis considers the United States system highway clearance system and suggests that the problems in Canada are not serious enough to require adoption of new procedures but could benefit from some 'fine tuning’ measures which would place with Revenue Canada the responsibilty for regulating the monopoly sufferance warehouse system. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

Increasingly, shippers need accurate motor carrier performance information. Carrier selection and performance evaluation programs, carrier certification programs and quality management programs all require accurate performance information. Traditionally, shippers do not have much experience in formally gathering and measuring such information. For those shippers and carriers who do measure performance, no standardized measuring and reporting rules exist within industry. Over the years, the accounting profession has established standardized financial performance information reporting rules based on user needs. The process used by the profession involves input from information users, exposure drafts that summarize information needs, and proposed measuring and reporting rules. Exposure drafts are criticized, modified, and recirculated. This iterative process continues until users accept rules. In an attempt to establish standardized carrier performance measuring and reporting rules, this study completes the first iteration of this process. This study examines the information needs of vehicle assemblers in Canada and the United States. This work is conducted while examining the feasibility of standardized measuring and reporting within this industry segment. From this research, the study suggests industry recommendations and future research needs. This study finds that vehicle assemblers generally have similar performance information needs but go about meeting these needs with different measurements. These information needs exist on two tiers. Popular delivery service attributes are on the first tier, while infrequent freight damage and loss, billing and service availability attributes are on the second tier. Although interest exists among vehicle assemblers to explore standardized carrier performance measures, barriers such as carrier performance evaluation program confidentiality stand in the way.

Increasingly, shippers need accurate motor carrier performance information. Carrier selection and performance evaluation programs, carrier certification programs and quality management programs all require accurate performance information. Traditionally, shippers do not have much experience in formally gathering and measuring such information. For those shippers and carriers who do measure performance, no standardized measuring and reporting rules exist within industry. Over the years, the accounting profession has established standardized financial performance information reporting rules based on user needs. The process used by the profession involves input from information users, exposure drafts that summarize information needs, and proposed measuring and reporting rules. Exposure drafts are criticized, modified, and recirculated. This iterative process continues until users accept rules. In an attempt to establish standardized carrier performance measuring and reporting rules, this study completes the first iteration of this process. This study examines the information needs of vehicle assemblers in Canada and the United States. This work is conducted while examining the feasibility of standardized measuring and reporting within this industry segment. From this research, the study suggests industry recommendations and future research needs. This study finds that vehicle assemblers generally have similar performance information needs but go about meeting these needs with different measurements. These information needs exist on two tiers. Popular delivery service attributes are on the first tier, while infrequent freight damage and loss, billing and service availability attributes are on the second tier. Although interest exists among vehicle assemblers to explore standardized carrier performance measures, barriers such as carrier performance evaluation program confidentiality stand in the way. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate